


The Nature of the Beast

by Carmarthen



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Imperial Era, M/M, Obi-Wan Kenobi on Tatooine, Pets, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Tusken Raiders Culture (Star Wars), not TCW-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:06:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27900478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: Only an outlander would want a weak massiff runt—Obi-Wan would adore it.(Maul gets Obi-Wan a space dog. For practical reasons, of course.)
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul
Comments: 28
Kudos: 139
Collections: Star Wars Rare Pairs 2020





	The Nature of the Beast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadowmaat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowmaat/gifts).



> Canon has diverged greatly to get them here (probably before TCW, since I haven't seen it and don't at this point write TCW Maul), but the details of exactly how are shrouded in mystery.
> 
> Many thanks to drcalvin for the beta, even though it's not her fandom!

Something in the cursed moisture 'vaporator had failed again, probably due to sand scour just like the last fifteen times. Maul glared at the machine; the Force would have let him destroy it in an instant, which would be satisfying on one level, but _fixing_ it would take at least an hour just to disassemble it and identify the problem.

He turned back to his speeder for his tools, but a movement high on the ridge caught his eye. Krayt dragons hunted in the canyons and under the sand, so Tuskens or Jawas were the most likely explanation. When he scanned the ridge with his macrobinocs, there was only one Tusken in sight the ridge. As the rider came closer, Maul recognized him as one of the youths of the White Bantha Clan, A'Sarkh. The tribe must be close, for a youth to be roaming the edge of the Wastes alone—if he was alone. Perhaps they had sent him to trade; it was the season for sand plums, and every morning, Obi-Wan had been rationing out the dried plums from last season with an increasingly wistful expression. It was annoying; food was food. Growing up with the Jedi had given Obi-Wan too much fondness for things like tea and sand plums and soft beds. Still, if sand plums would make him stop looking at his morning porridge like he was missing a past that no longer existed, they were not too hard to obtain.

Maul raised an arm in greeting, and A'Sarkh waved back, turning his bantha down the slope towards Maul. "Maghul the Hunter!" he called, waving again with the arm not holding the reins. "I greet you with open hands."

"And I receive you the same," Maul said, accompanying his words with a display of empty hands. Spoken Tusken was hard on the throat; he understood it well enough now, but preferred to sign. "Have you come to trade?" A'Sarkh had grown in the last season to be nearly as tall as Maul himself, and he swung himself off the bantha's back with the awkwardness of unfamiliar height. It seemed just yesterday that he had been just another silent, masked child hiding behind the adults of the tribe.

"I have sand plums gathered by my cousins. Your wizard likes the sand plums, I think," A'Sarkh said, with as much slyness as the guttural Tusken language could manage. The form of "your" he chose implied a certain degree of...intimacy, which Maul might once have denied, but if even children could see it now, there was not much point. "He is well? How is he?"

"Do the dunes ever change?" Maul signed.

"Never and always," said A'Sarkh, with an approving sign. "That is good. You are a small tribe, but it is better to be a small tribe than no tribe at all. Is he lonely when you go among the faceless ones in the Camp that Never Moves?"

Maul had no idea how to answer that ridiculous question, so he shrugged. "Do you have anything besides sand plums? What's in that saddlebag?" He gestured towards a small bag that twitched a little—live prey? The Tuskens rarely trapped prey live, but it wasn't unheard of for particular delicacies best eaten very fresh.

"Ah, Maghul the Hunter is observant as always," said A'Sarkh. Maul was beginning to feel a bit like he was being sold a used landspeeder of dubious provenance. "But I do not think it would interest you."

Definitely of dubious provenance, whatever it was, and Maul was running out of patience for this game. "But it would interest Kenobi?"

"Perhaps, perhaps." A'Sarkh had already begun untying the flap of the bag, which had begun wriggling. "Perhaps your wizard would like a companion with him when you hunt the dunes. A guard for your camp."

The head of a very small massiff pup popped out of the bag, muzzle curled in a soft growl around stubby but sharp fangs. His hackles had barely started to grow, mere thorns along his spine, and his hide was still soft, but he gave an optimistic snap at Maul's outstretched hand. "He is a good pup, of a good lineage. His mother is the first female in a pack that hunts canyon-dragons," A'Sarkh continued, which might even be true, although this particular pup was obviously a runt that would have been eaten by its brothers and sisters if not taken away and hand-reared, an effort the Tuskens rarely bothered with. Only an outlander would want a weak massiff runt—Obi-Wan would adore it.

A short negotiation later, they parted ways, Maul with two bags of fresh sand plums and the massiff runt and A'Sarkh with the macrobinoculars and half a dozen ration bars from Maul's pockets. It was not an even trade, but all creatures began weak, and the bloody dents in Maul's hand from the pup's teeth were a promising sign of its spirit. It wasn't a bad idea to have a guard for the hut.

His wristcom beeped an alert—a sandstorm brewing out in the Dune Sea—so Maul secured his trade to the back of his speederbike and turned back. The 'vaporator repair would have to wait.

* * *

It was still a bit of a petty pleasure to cloak his presence in the Force long enough to appear in the doorframe without warning and surprise Obi-Wan, who jabbed himself with a needle and cursed before setting aside the shirt he was mending. "I see you're back early. And bearing gifts."

"There's a sandstorm coming. I ran into A'Sarkh out in the eastern fork of the canyon." Maul deposited the bags of sand plums on the table and pulled one out to toss to Obi-Wan, who brought it to his nose and inhaled with an expression of delight. "I hope these will satisfy you until next season."

"I think it will take more than sand plums to satisfy me until next season, but you have never given me any concern on that account," said Obi-Wan, with a burst of warmth in the Force that made Maul's face heat. "But you've brought some animal back with you—it likes the darkness, like the safety of the shell—Maul, tell me you haven't somehow acquired a dragon egg!"

"Don't be ridiculous. We don't have the space for a dragon." Beneath the tranquil Jedi surface, Obi-Wan was almost vibrating with curiosity. But as entertaining as this was, they had to close up for the coming storm, and Maul could feel the pup's growing hunger. "A'Sarkh would have a fine future in used speeders if he knew how to operate one. It's a massiff pup—I don't even know if it will survive; it certainly wasn't worth the macrobinocs that little mercenary demanded. Careful, it bites!"

As soon as he'd said "massiff," Obi-Wan had begun untying the bag, and Maul's warning came too late, for the pup had already latched on to Obi-Wan's arm, tiny hackles raised.

"He reminds me a bit of you," Obi-Wan said drily, as he scratched the growling creature between the eyes. "There, you're all right, little one, no one will hurt you. You're just hungry, aren't you? I can offer you something better than my arm if you'll just let go, my friend."

Maul rolled his eyes at the comparison, but he had been right. Kenobi already adored the little monster.

Later, after the hut was sealed up against the sand and the lights turned on against the dark, the pup dozed in Obi-Wan's lap, its belly distended. It snored, making its hackles vibrate, and it was drooling on Obi-Wan's thigh. "You will spoil it," Maul told Obi-Wan. "Do you really want fifty kilos of full-grown massiff trying to climb in your lap someday?"

Outside, the wind howled. Obi-Wan leaned back against him, tilting his head to rest against Maul's shoulder, all smugness. "You like him. I can sense it."

"I like _you_ , old man." Maul pressed his lips to Obi-Wan's temple with the unthinking ease of long habit; how strange, that this was where the Force had led him after so many years, to this man in this place, and more peace than he had ever imagined he would want. "But he will _not_ sleep in the bed with us."


End file.
